


weaned on poison

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Gavvy boy deals with some toxic masculinity, Guilt, M/M, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Touch-Starved, hank is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 07:46:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17576771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: DBH Rarepairs Week: Day 1 - First Kiss & Please Don't GoGavin tries to deal with the overwhelming fear that he's a violent person and doing his absolute best to keep his feelings for Connor at bay.





	weaned on poison

**Author's Note:**

> "I have never been kissed the way I want to be kissed and I have never been touched the way I want to be touched."  
> Sadie - Courtney Summers

Whenever he sees Connor, all he thinks about is blood. The smell of Thirium and the look of it and the way it left a neat splatter across the tiles and the console. Not like how a human would look if they were shot in the had. Less messy. It haunts his dreams—that blank look on his face. He’s seen dead bodies before. Plenty of them. Too much for his liking. He’s seen them burnt to a crisp and seemingly unharmed and torn about by gunshots.

But Connor is not a human being. He is not like the corpses he’s seen before.

And it’s fine. It’s fucking _fine._ Gavin is good at avoiding things. He’s good at keeping his head down when he needs to. He’s good at blocking out the sight of an android wandering around the station. He can handle it, alright? He can _fucking handle it._

But Connor befriends Tina. It happens strangely quick. He helps her with a case and suddenly they are constantly beside one another, talking and laughing and far too fucking close for Gavin to be comfortable with and he keeps looking up, suddenly his self-restraint collapsing at the sound of Connor’s voice, at the way his laugh sounds both fake and muffled, like he’s holding it back but also forcing one out. Authentic and artificial.

“I’m trying to work here,” he snaps, breaking Connor’s laugh in half, looking up just in time to see that small smile evaporate from his lips. Just in time to regret it. “Can you fuck off or take your little social party somewhere else?”

“Sorry, Gav,” Tina says, leaning towards him. “We like to annoy you.”

“Glad you’re having fun with this. Meanwhile there’s a fucking serial killer on the loose, and I think keeping more preteen girls from getting chopped up and thrown into dumpsters is a little more important than you _annoying_ me.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, and the words grate on him. “I should leave.”

Gavin looks back to him as he walks away, quickly back to his own desk, sinking down in the chair, a hand up and covering the LED carefully. He’s doing it on purpose. Keeping the light hidden from other people’s view. Blocking the soft glow of it from prying eyes.

“Gavin—”

“Please don’t apologize to me.”

“Fuck off. I’m sorry, alright?” Tina says. “I didn’t realize you were assigned that case. You should have Fowler take you off of it.”

“No.”

“No?”

He doesn’t answer her need for an excuse. He doesn’t want to provide a reason why he has to work on this. And he can’t seem to get himself to focus long enough on creating a false one or speaking the truth anyways. He keeps slipping back further and further into Connor’s voice as he said _I’m sorry._

Soft and quiet, genuinely apologetic. The first apology spoken between them shouldn’t be from Connor to _him_. It should be the other way around. But that would assume Gavin even has the ability to say those words, sound out those syllables. _Impossible._ The only time he can ever say sorry is to his cat, very rarely to Tina. He is incapable of it, especially when he knows someone deserves it.

 

 

“Detective Reed?”

“For fuck’s sake,” he pulls the cigarette from his mouth, flicks the ashes to the ground where they rest against the snow. “What do you want?”

“You shouldn’t smoke.”

“I’m aware.” How had Hank put it? He can’t will himself to pull the trigger, so he kills himself a little bit everyday? And now he’s in the ground and Gavin is here all fucking alone as if the two of them had any more of relationship these past few years except insults tossed back and forth. Old man isn’t his fucking father and if he was? Maybe he wouldn’t have the scars on his back. Or maybe he would. Maybe it would always be Gavin’s fault. He brought them upon himself. “What do you want, Connor?”

“We haven’t talked.”

“No.”

“I think we should,” he says, taking a step forward into the alley. “There were things that… _occurred—”_

“I killed you.”

“Technically, yes.”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he says, dropping his cigarette to the ground, crushing it against a puddle of melting snow. “I’m not feeling very touch-y feel-y today, alright? I don’t want to have a conversation about your newfound emotions.”

“Detective Reed—”

He looks up at him, cuts Connor off with a glare. He hopes it looks like a glare. He hopes it doesn’t look like he is pleading and begging Connor to leave him alone.

“Okay,” Connor concedes, nods slowly. “I’m sorry.”

He mumbles a _fuck off_ as he pushes past Connor. He’s hit with the sudden urge to shove him back, as if he’s taking up the pathway. Something to make him not look like a crybaby. Something to make it look as if he doesn’t experience any emotion at all. He wishes he was an android. It would be easier. No emotions. No worry about money. Nothing.

Connor sighs behind him, and he glances back once—and only once, it only takes the one time for it to be a mistake—and he watches him lean back against the brick wall of a building, tilting his face up to the sky, his eyes slipping closed and that stupid LED flickering red.

_Fuck._

 

 

 They don’t touch. They haven’t laid a finger on one another since they fought in the archive room, since he pressed down on that trigger, since blood splattered across the tile and he was left breathing heavily and pissed off and storming out of the room until—

Until Connor showed back up again, right after the revolution. Standing in the middle of the DPD with his head turned to the side, watching Hank’s desk. His LED red and awful and he is flooded so suddenly with how absolutely fucking _stupid_ he is.

Gavin watches him for a moment. Wonders if Connor is invited to the funeral. He wasn’t, and even if he _was_ he wouldn’t go. He might regret that in a few years. He might wish he was there when they lowered the casket into the ground. But he’s regretted quite a bit and he has grown accustomed to how that feels. What is one more thing to drown himself in a sea of despair?

Connor looks up, over to him with the LED flickering between red and yellow. Moving in such a way that it ends up looking orange. Injured and processing information. Hurt and thinking. _In pain and confused._

He moves his attention away from Connor, back to his desk. Tidying up the space to busy his hands. It’s normally clean. It’s normally arranged in a way that helps keep his thoughts organized, but he’s left it a mess. He can’t bring himself to toss the old mug of coffee or put the stray pens back in their cup where they belong.

It’s a few months until he starts to find his way to Connor’s side. To stop arguing about conversations he has with Tina and instead chiming in more and more until Connor is leaning between the two of their desks and looking over at Gavin with that stupid smile. Crooked, like he can’t quite manage to smile properly.

 

 

“Coffee?”

He looks up to Connor, watches as the cup is set gently on the side of his desk. He offers a small smile. A thanks he cannot voice. It always sounds wrong, like he’s lying through his teeth no matter how grateful he actually is.

And then he watches him walk away. Slowly to the other side of the room, settling down at his desk, leaning against his hand with his fingers resting over his LED, covering it up. Why not just get rid of it if he can’t handle the thought of other people seeing what he feels?

 

 

Gavin watches him at the whiteboard, stretching up to the very top to scribble something along another sentence. Cramming the letters together tight, putting them too close together to make sure that there’s enough space for the whole paragraph he is uselessly transcribing onto the surface.

There’s something about it, the way he settles back down on his feet, stepping away and looking over his work, that makes something in his chest _shift._ Both like his heart is sinking into his stomach and like butterflies have been released into the space it’s left behind.

“Gavin? Are you alright?”

He glances over to Tina, wondering how much of it is written on his face. The surprise and the uneasy layer of anger and _terror._

The terror that he could love something he destroyed so brutally, so thoughtlessly.

“I’m fine,” he whispers, and his voice comes out a little cracked and a little broken. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

 

“Gavin—”

It takes him a moment to process that this is the first time Connor has called him by his first name. Not _Detective Reed._ Not even just _Reed,_ but _Gavin_. He pauses for a moment before pushing Connor back a little further into the closet, letting the door close behind him.

“Shut up, will you?”

“I don’t think—”

“Fucking close your mouth and stop speaking.”

Connor nods, pressing his lips together tightly. _Okay, okay._

He sighs and takes a step back, leaning against the door, watching Connor for a moment. He can’t quite decide what he wants to do, but he’s already gotten this far. He can’t turn back now. There aren’t really any ways out of this. He acted too impulsively. He should have thought this out more.

Although, he supposes, he could kiss Connor. Pretend that he brought him here for a quick fuck and that’s all he wanted. Discard him like a piece of trash. That would destroy them. The fragile relationship they have. Barely even one at all.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t want to kiss Connor. He already feels like his hands are on fire from grabbing his jacket and pulling him over here. “For pushing you.”

“Which time?”

He tilts his head, tries to remember every single time he’s touched Connor. Hitting him and fighting him and—

It is all colored with the vicious shade of violence, which he imagines is the same color as a bruise when it’s healing. Green and purple hues. Broken blood vessels.

“I meant—Listen, I told you to shut the fuck up, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“So, keep your mouth shut.”

He repeats the same movement before, but the corners of his lips are moving upwards a little bit, only stopped by how much he’s keeping his lips clamped together. He’s finding this amusing, when Gavin is on the verge of tears.

“Look, I wanted to apologize. I should have apologized before. I’m not good at it. But—” he pauses, breathes in an annoying breath, lets it out in a huff with a flow of words quick and clipped together, “I’m sorry, alright? For everything. Hurting you and killing you. I shouldn’t have said or done any of that. And I don’t—I don’t really know how to make you believe it. I just want to make sure you know that I do. That I am. Sorry, that is. Fuck.”

Connor’s face falls, his mouth moving as he bites down on his lower lip, his eyes drifting to the floor. All of the humor he had before in betraying Gavin’s stupid rule gone now.

“I do believe you,” he says. “And I do forgive you… I guess. Partially. I can’t hold it against you, per say. It’s… confusing.”

“Confusing?”

“You killed me.”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t thought about it in a while,” his voice grows quieter and quieter with each word. “I think I tried to forget it. Pretend it didn’t happen. I liked talking with you. And Tina tells me… you’re a good person. Deep down.”

“She’s on drugs,” he says, trying to lighten the mood, but Connor’s face seems to twitch, and he takes a step forward, reaching a hand out and laying it lightly on Gavin’s chest.

“I believe her,” Connor replies, moving his hand away slowly, resting one finger against his heart, like an arrow. If he pushed hard enough it would pierce through, leave him to bleed out on the ground. “You are a good person, Gavin.”

“But?”

“I can forgive but I cannot forget.”

He leaves it at that. Giving Gavin a glance that says more. A thousand words more. _But this has to stop._ They cannot keep pretending that they’ll be friends. That they will be anything more than coworkers with a sordid past. They will always and forever be nothing, because Gavin was raised on violence. He had his hands bandaged for fights and ice against black eyes and left more broken bones in his wake than he cares to remember.

 

 

It’s easy. Probably the easiest thing he has ever decided to do. He was always good at giving himself arbitrary rules and sticking to them. He is stubborn and rotten and _disciplined._ If there is one thing that his childhood has taught him, it is how to be strict with himself. If there is another? It is staying the fuck away from other people. Being careful and cautious about avoiding contact with another human being.

But Connor is not a human being. And Gavin finds he gravitates quite easily to his side. Like his soul is seeking him out. Wanting the connection and the conversation. They’re different now. Gavin adds less to Tina and Connor’s chats, keeping his eyes focused on his work but eavesdropping in on them. Listening closely to the topics as though it might somehow drift to him and he will be allowed inside information on what it might take to convince Connor he is more than just a brute of a man.

The truth, however, is simply this:

He isn’t anything over than a man wrapped in a blanket of cruelty.

Hank knew that. Tina knows that. Connor knows that.

There isn’t anything he can do to fix this.

 

 

_“Fuck,”_ he mumbles, kicking at the covers around him. He’s frustrated. Wanting and wanting. Picturing Connor again and again in his head. He tries to shove the thoughts away but they just mutate into something else. A different position, a different way he might look. On his knees, mouth open or riding him, head tilted back. Or the other way around. Gavin on his knees. Gavin the one underneath. Arms pinned above his head or a hand around his throat. Little innocent Connor roughing him up like he deserves.

It’s ridiculous. It’s embarrassing. Waking up with these dreams still lingering in his head, leaving him hard and reminding him how alone he is. Gavin swears at himself for the tenth time, tosses around in the bed, refusing to touch himself. He can’t give in. He wouldn’t be able to look at Connor tomorrow if he did. He might not be able to anyways.

“Shit,” he says, tossing a pillow towards the wall. “Fucking androids.”

He wishes.

 

 

He doesn’t pass by Connor’s desk to get to his own, but that doesn’t mean Connor isn’t already sitting on the edge of Tina’s, talking to her. His face heats up as he sits down, keeping his eyes on anything he can find to distract himself. If he looks up, he will break in half.

“You look tired, Detective Reed.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Nightmares?”

“No—Not exactly.”

Gavin doesn’t look up, but he watches as Connor sets a coffee cup down on the desk in front of him. He watches his fingers, feeling his face turn redder and redder. Connor is meant to be good at reading body language. He could probably guess—

He shoves the thought from his head, takes the coffee gratefully as Connor disappears. Looking up only once to watch him walk away.

 

 

“Hey, I—I don’t want to interrupt, but…”

“Yes, Detective Reed?” Connor says, looking from the stack of papers he’s setting down to him, standing awkward and alone by his desk.

The place is empty. Everyone gone to investigate and solve all of the Valentine’s Day-themed murder cases. Busiest day of the year. People getting revenge on cheating spouses and loved ones. People letting out their anger from their loneliness. It’s not even just murder. It’s just _death_ in general. Everywhere and tormenting everyone.

He fucking hates Valentine’s Day.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, watching Connor’s hand, keeping them stuck on the way they grasp the papers that have been carefully stapled together. “F-for the coffee. This morning. All.. mornings, really... Um—”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Gavin sighs, feels like he’s dealing with a child, having to spell everything out here. Except he knows it’s just Connor making him speak. Forcing them to keep talking longer and longer. Connor knows how to stretch out conversations. He knows how to play at misunderstanding words and jokes. He’s a good actor. Skilled with portraying a naïve and innocent boy.  “Why do you get me coffee every morning? I can do it just fine myself.”

“It’s not that I think you’re incapable,” Connor replies, setting the last paper down on the desk. It makes Gavin’s eyes drift up, watch his face as he speaks, the care in which he uses when he picks his words, taking slow steps toward him. “I know you like coffee. I bring it to you as… a sign of friendship.”

“Friendship?”

“Perhaps not the word,” Connor says, and he is getting too close to Gavin now. “It’s not what I’m looking for.”

Gavin takes a step back, stumbling a little bit over his feet as he tries to move away from Connor. He doesn’t get this. He doesn’t get the shoving away and then the pulling back. Connor made it clear with one look that he didn’t want anything more than an acquaintanceship between them.

“What are you looking for?”

Another step forward. Another step back.

“Something else.”

“S-S—” Gavin stops, his voice evaporating as he hits the edge of a table, as Connor takes the last step forward. They aren’t touching, but they are as close as they can possible be without contact.

“Gavin—”

“What is the something else, Connor?” he asks, his voice a whisper. “What are you looking for?”

“I think you already know.”

“Say it.”

Connor’s face shifts, turning from something soft to something—

_Broken._ He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to put those thoughts into words. And can Gavin blame him? Nobody has ever wanted him as anything more than a one-night stand or a punching bag. He is a piece of garbage. He has been used and wasted and decimated until all that remained was the depravity of his soul.

“Don’t—Don’t touch me.”

“Gavin—”

_“Please.”_

And he hates this. He hates that Connor has twisted his head. Making him say _sorry_ and _thank you_ and _please_. As if any of it matters. As if any of this could ever matter. He will always be the worst choice and the murderer and the antagonist. Nothing is going to change that. No amount of pleasantries is going to change that.

But as Connor moves away, careful not to even brush the slightest bit against him, he still wants to choke out three tiny words. Keep Connor near him, maybe try and pretend that he could have this.

_Please don’t go._

 

 

He sits cross-legged on his bed, watching his cat make a path around the room as she jumps from a cat tree to his hamper to his desk. He holds back his tears because that is what he was always taught to do as a child. Don’t cry. _Men_ do not cry. _Men_ shouldn’t even have cats. Dogs are a _man’s_ best friend. Cats are feminine, right? All these stupid fucking lessons sitting in his head. No matter how much he tries to unlearn them, no matter how much he knows they’re not true, they keep coming back. Again and again and again.

Gavin reaches for the case file. All of the evidence laid out in their pages. Four dead girls and possibly even more. Each crime scene photographed extensively, each page filled full with the disgusting and horrific details of what happened to them.

Twelve and thirteen and fourteen and brutally murdered.

_Focus. Focus. Focus._

His jaw trembles as he turns the page. Looking at the yearbook photo for one of the girls. So young. So much life ahead of her. Ripped from her arms and shoved into the dumpster. As if she meant _nothing._

He reaches for his phone, dials Tina’s number, presses it against his ear as it rings. His hand comes up, pinching the bridge of his nose tight, using the pain as a diversion to the tears.

“Hello?”

“Tina, it’s…” he sighs, looking towards that picture again. The text on the page beside it. Listing her family and her brief life. Interviews stating what a bright child she was. So smart and caring. So foolishly trusting. “I need you to talk to Fowler for me.”

“Okay.”

“It’s—I can’t—”

“It’s okay.”

_It’s not._ He’s a fucking wimp. Can’t even handle a few dead bodies. Can’t stomach a little bit of blood. He can hear his father’s voice yelling at him, shouting at him for crying.

“Gavin?” she asks, her voice breaking the silence. “Gavin, you know it’s okay to be upset by this, don’t you?”

“I’m fine. I—I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

“Hey, wait—” a car door slams in the background, the sound of rain like static as she speaks. “If you need anything, call me, okay? I’m here for you.”

“I know.”

She lets out a small sigh, disbelief filling the dead space between them. He has never once properly gone to her when he needed to. He has always suffered alone. “Please, Gavin.”

“I will.” He won’t.

 

 

“Hi.”

_Hi._ Said lightly, with a small wave of his hand, a smile trying it’s hardest to erase the anxiety and tension between them. It’s a failure. It’s been a month since they really talked. It’s been two since Connor almost—

Did something irreversible.

Gavin can’t even allow himself to think that it might have been a kiss, as much as he knows it was meant to be one. Thinking about it that much reminds him that he didn’t allow it to happen. That he refused to let it happen. That these two painful months could have been so much better if he had Connor at his side, holding his hand and kissing him softly.

“How do you know where I live?”

“I have the address of all DPD officers,” Connor says. “They gave me a lot of information on my coworkers to make sure I could assimilate better into the job. Make the situation a little less… awkward.”

A nicer way of putting it.

“What are you doing here, then?”

“I wanted to talk. I think we should talk.”

Gavin sighs and takes a step back, opening the door a little wider, “Come in. Before the cat sneaks out.”

He smiles, a little more real this time, stepping into the apartment and over to the couch where the cat is watching him curiously from her perch on the armrest. The door closes, and he watches as Connor reaches out, petting the cat gently.

“What’s her name?”

“Latte.”

“Cute.”

“Yeah. Adorable. You wanted to talk?”

Connor turns back to him, his hands joining in front of him, wringing together as if they lack something to busy themselves with. The quarter, likely.

“I like you.”

“Me?” he says, a laugh breaking up the letters.

“I unfortunately had the same reaction,” he offers a small smile, as if it will soften the meaning of his words. _I did not want to like you._ “But yes. You. I like _you_ , Gavin.”

“Why?”

“I’m not quite sure, to be honest,” Connor takes a tentative step forward, and he shrinks backwards, hitting the edge of the wall. He’s not doing this again. “I tried not too. And I could list out all the things I know about you but I don’t… I don’t know how to summarize the fact that I like you. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Doesn’t make any fucking sense to me, either. I killed you. I hit you.”

“That’s the problem. I still like you anyways.”

“Fuck,” he sighs. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think you like me, too.”

It takes him a second, but he manages to force out a laugh. Barking and rude. Coated in as much cruelty as he can manage. He wants to make Connor flinch, to fall backwards and realize how wrong he is. That Gavin could never like an android—let alone _Connor._

It doesn’t work.

Connor is much too skilled at seeing through this—this _need_ to keep him at a distance, this need to make sure they don’t slip beyond what they cannot have, what will never, ever last.

 “Why do you do that?” he whispers instead, tilting his head. “Why do you push me away?”

A few weeks, perhaps a few months. That’s all they would get before Connor realized how much he _doesn’t_ like Gavin. And he can’t handle that. He can’t handle the rejection. He can’t handle being shoved away. So, he pushes first. He knows that this is what he’s doing. That isn’t going to stop him from doing it. He doesn’t need someone to spell it out for him. That won’t solve anything.

He is worthless and hateful and violent. He is not someone Connor should be with.

“You’re a fucking android, you think I want to be associated with you? You think I want people to see me with something like you? A fucking piece of plastic playing at having a soul?”

“Gavin—” Connor takes another step forward, and Gavin hits his arm against the corner of the wall hard, pain vibrating up his shoulder blade, residing there as Connor reaches out towards him.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he says, and his voice breaks on the words, they’re filling up with all the tears that he’s refusing to shed. He reaches backwards along the wall, finding the knob to his bedroom and slipping inside, closing it behind him before Connor can try again.

“Gavin, _please,”_ Connor whispers from the other side. “Please talk to me.”

“Fuck off. I don’t want to talk.”

“No. I’m not leaving. Not until you talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“No? What about the case? Why’d you have Tina talk to Fowler about getting you moved to a different one? You don’t have any reason for that?”

“I have my reasons and you don’t fucking need to know them,” he says, and his fists curl up at his sides and he has to force them to straight out, press down flat against the floorboards to keep his fingers from returning to that shape again.

“No. I don’t. But I want to.”

He breathes in. A shaking breath. Holds it because he doesn’t know what will happen on his exhale. If he’ll let it out with a scream or with a story tumbling from his lips about all the things in his past or if he’ll remain silent or maybe, _maybe_ , and most likely, he will cry.

_Men do not cry._

“I do know things…” Connor trails off, his voice quiet. Gavin can hear the sound of him shifting outside of the door, leaning against it. “About you. Things I don’t have a right to know. But they were in your file. Medical history and incidents at the schools you attended. I know… what happened to you. And your family. I wish I didn’t. I wish one day you would have been comfortable enough to tell me yourself, but I know and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

He chokes out the breath, his words spilling out from his lips, “What? You think you know me because you know my mom’s in jail? You think you know me because you know my sister’s dead?”

“I know you blame yourself for both of those things.”

He bites his lip, tries to come up with something to say. That he knows it isn’t his fault his sister’s dead. Hit by a car when he was asleep. He wasn’t involved. But if he had been awake, if he’d gone with his sister to the park, he might’ve been able to stop her from running across a street at the wrong time.

And he knows if he’d been the one to take the gun from the safe and shoot his father, his mother wouldn’t be in jail, either. If he’d stayed up with his studies and done as good as his brother, he might’ve been able to graduate quicker, head off to a university just like him. Create something that would alter the world forever. Use that money to help his mother run away.

If he’d been good enough, if he’d been smart enough.

But he hadn’t.

He was raised on poison. His heart is a mutated organ of hatred beating steadily behind bones crafted from malice.

“You’re a good person, Gavin. I know you don’t believe it. But you are.”

“I killed you,” he says, and he isn’t even sure if Connor can hear it because his voice comes out cracked and broken and he can’t hold back the onslaught of tears. “I fucking killed you.”

“You knew that I wouldn’t stay dead, though. You knew I would come back.”

He leans his head back against the door, wants to slam it against the wall fifteen times until there’s nothing left of him. Just like that HK400.

“You know the permanence of death. You wouldn’t have done it if you thought I’d stay dead.”

Yes. Of course he does. He knows the _permanence of death._ He knows the gaping hole it leaves behind. He knows the monstrosity of grief and he knows the horror of trying to kill it.

His father is dead. His sister is dead. His brother hasn’t talked to him in nearly twenty years. His mother is in prison.

And Hank is dead.

And Connor is on the other side of this door.

“That doesn’t excuse anything. I still hit you—”

“Did you think I’d feel the pain of it?”

_No._ It wasn’t about making Connor hurt. That doesn’t mean he should be forgiven.

“Can you leave?” he asks. “Just… get out. Please.”

_Can you stay?_ he thinks. _Please don’t go._

“Okay. I’ll go.”

A shuffle of feet moving, drifting away further and further. He doesn’t hear the door open and close, and he stays here for a moment. Legs curled up to his chest, hands pressed to his face and suffocating his tears and his screams against his skin.

When he finally gets up, when he walks back into the living room, he is filled with the foolish hope that Connor is going to be sitting on the couch or standing in the kitchen and waiting for him. But the place is empty, and Gavin is left alone.

 

 

He keeps his distance more than usual. Connor consistently glances back towards him, his face softening into a smile. He is trying so desperately to bridge a gap that cannot be closed. It’s starting to piss him off. That smile and those eyes and the gentleness with which he uses to look towards him. He doesn’t deserve it, and he is incredibly thankful when the day ends and he can go home.

Gavin leaves quickly, tugging his jacket on as he exits the building, walking fast down the street. He needs a cup of coffee, and not the kind that the station has. Something better. A warm cup in his hands. The sound of people talking about something other than gore and death surrounding him.

He sits down at a table, holds the cup with both hands, looks down at it and doesn’t move his eyes away. Half studying the plastic granite pattern of the tabletop and half letting the blank surface fill his head with a static image in the hopes it will drown out his thoughts. But it does little to help.

And there is a chair moving in the edge of his line of sight, the sound of it dragging across the ground quietly, the dark shape of a person indistinguishable, but the knee bumping against his is unmistakable.

“What do you want, Connor?”

There’s not a response, and suddenly he is struck with the thought that he was wrong. That there is a stranger sitting beside him instead. He glances up, only to find he was correct. Connor staring back at him with his head tilted, his eyebrows furrowed in some mix of concern and confusion. He’s leaning against his hand, his fingers hiding his LED.

“You,” he says finally. “I want you, Gavin.”

“Fuck,” Gavin sighs, leaning backwards. “This again?”

“Yes. This _again._ ” Connor leans forward, his hand moving away to reveal the little yellow light. He’s reaching across the table, and Gavin shrinks backwards, holding his cup at the edge, not willing to let it go. “I don’t know how to make you believe that I actually like you.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” he replies. “It’s that you shouldn’t.”

“Alright. How do I make you stop trying to convince me that you’re a bad person?”

“I don’t know. How do I convince you that we shouldn’t be together?”

Connor smiles, and it irritates him, because the stupid android is fucking smiling but he isn’t getting the point. Gavin isn’t a good person. He is vicious. Like a rabid animal. He will bite. He will snap.

“Why can’t you take no for an answer? Against your programming?”

“It isn’t really about that.”

“No? What is it about?”

“I think you should stop tormenting yourself,” he says, and his voice falls quiet, his hand still in the space between them, stretched out across the table like he’s waiting for Gavin to take it. “I think you should accept that you’re allowed to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“Are you?”

Gavin looks away, out the window to the busy streets. It’s raining. Just barely. Little drops decorating the pavement in a random polka dot pattern. The people walk by quickly, a few drawing up their hoods to protect themselves. He wishes he could do that. Pull up his hood and keep safe away from Connor.

“I’m not trying to push you into being with me,” Connor says. “I’m worried about you.”

“But you want to date me, right? That’s the only reason you even care.”

“No,” he says. “It’s not. I just want to understand and I want to help.”

“I don’t want your fucking help,” Gavin snaps, looking back to him. “I don’t want you around me.”

“And I don’t believe you.”

“Yeah? You’re a fucking walking lie detector?”

“Not quite, but close enough.”

“Well, I don’t want your help. And even if I did, you being my boyfriend isn’t going to solve all my problems, is it?”

“No.”

“So leave me alone.”

“Gavin…” he reaches out further, his fingers nearly grazing Gavin’s. But he is quicker, and he pulls away at the last second. “Please.”

“Don’t. Fucking. Touch me.”

He stands, leaving his coffee on the table, pushing the door open and racing down the sidewalk as fast as he can manage until he’s practically running, sprinting past the pedestrians. He can’t let Connor catch up with him. He can’t let this happen. He can’t get his own hopes up. They will be crushed and destroyed and he will be left more broken than when Connor found him.

 

 

“I told you to leave me the fuck alone.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Connor reaches to his pocket, holding out the wallet across the threshold. “You dropped this.”

Gavin wrinkles his nose, taking it quickly from Connor’s grip. Careful not to let their fingers touch, but when his hand moves over the faux leather all he can imagine is Connor’s grip holding onto it. He’s heard of indirect kisses. Is there such a thing as indirect hand holding?

_How stupid._

“Thanks. You can go now.”

He swings the door closed, tossing the wallet onto the countertop in the kitchen. He walks back towards the living room, ready to flop back down on the couch and relax. If he’s capable of relaxing.

Except he doesn’t get very far. Arms close around his waist and hold him tight, he feels a face bury it’s way against his shoulder.

And he doesn’t even hear the words that Connor says, they are lost in the fact his chest is constricting so tight and his brain has gone fuzzy. The arms around him, the warmth of another body so close to his, the feeling—

It is so overwhelming he can’t think straight. All of his thoughts have jumbled together, lost somewhere else. He feels like someone has pushed him out of a plane without a parachute and he just keeps falling and falling and falling.

“L-Let me go—”

“No.”

“Connor—”

“I love you, and I kept avoiding saying it because I didn’t think you’d understand. But I do. And I’m not letting you go. I know you think you’re a violent person, and I don’t want to push you into having to talk about your past but you _aren’t_. I forgave you for a reason, Gavin.”

“Because you love me?”

“No.”

He leans back against Connor, against his better judgement. He lets his eyes slip closed. He lets himself relish in the fact that Connor is hugging him, holding him in a way that he has never been held in his entire life, saying words he has never heard before.

“Connor—”

“I love you.”

“Connor, ple—”

“I do. I love you.”

“Stop.”

“No. Never. Not until you believe it.”

The worst part of it is—

_He does._ He does believe it. He believes Connor loves him. He believes that Connor sees some sliver of good in him—the same that Tina sees. But they see it as a seed that can grow, as if his soul is not an infertile environment that will crush it any time it tries to get any bigger.

“Let me go, Connor,” he says, and he manages the words this time without them breaking, without them stuttering or falling apart. Even and flat and emotionless.

“I’m a lot more stubborn than you, Gavin,” he says, and his grip tightens. “That may be hard to believe, but it’s true. I am.”

And he believes that, too.

For some reason, this is what breaks him. Connor’s persistence. The refusal to let Gavin go. The holding onto him ever tighter. He’s not leaving. He’s not going anywhere. He’s staying.

After all these years— _Connor_ is the one to stay.

His sister died and his mother went to jail, his brother left him alone and Hank eventually gave up trying to fill the gap his father left behind. Tina is his best friend. She is the only one he has, but she doesn’t press him on the sore subjects. She knows more than anyone else, but he still has carefully crafted walls built to keep her out.

But Connor is still here. He is still holding onto him. He is still refusing to let go.

Gavin’s knees give out, and he slips to the floor. Connor keeps his hold on him, still has those stupid plastic arms holding on so tight he can barely breathe. And he’s glad. If he was able to breathe properly, he might be screaming right now.

“Gavin?”

“Please—” he mumbles, his eyes squeezing shut in an effort to keep the tears at bay. “Please don’t go.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

 

 

He eventually gets Connor to let go of him. He needs the space to speak. He needs to force distance between them to be able to talk. Gavin keeps his gaze down on the floor, focusing on the grains of the wood while the story slips out of him. Connor might know his past, but he doesn’t know much more than the paragraphs typed up to explain away his broken bones or how many fights he got into at school. He doesn’t know the specifics.

And it’s difficult—it would be easier to say this through a text. Type up his fears, found and unfound, about being violent. About how much he wants to punch people sometimes even though they don’t deserve it. He’s good at holding it back. But not always.

Not when he punched Connor.

They aren’t excuses. They are barely even explanations.

And when he finally looks up at Connor, his voice decimates the last barrier he had.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, barely gets it out, barely forms the syllables that are annihilated by his tears. “I’m fucking sorry, Connor, and I wish I could go back and change it and… I just—I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know,” he says, moving back to Gavin’s side. Connor doesn’t touch him. _Barely_. Gavin is desperate to reach out and take his hand, to pull him close, to hold onto him with the same rib-crushing strength that Connor embraced him with. But he doesn’t. He is good at holding back on his impulsiveness.

“Why did you forgive me?” he asks instead. “Why—What could make you—”

“I didn’t at first.” Connor says simply. “It took a while. I got to know you. I heard stories about you from Tina. You used to save every stray cat you saw, didn’t you? Take in the elderly ones that the shelters couldn’t? And I’ve seen how you handle cases with kids, the… _care_ you put into making sure they’re comfortable first and asking questions later. You don’t trick them like I’ve seen some detectives do. And… you’re funny. You’re hilarious sometimes. I don’t think you mean to do it, but other than Tina—I don’t know. You’re the only person that has ever made me laugh.”

“And you forgave me because of that?”

“Partially,” he smiles lightly. “I’ve also done some very terrible things, Gavin. I’ve hurt androids that didn’t deserve it because of my mission, and I had a choice in all of those moments to be a better… _person._ There are ways to follow orders without being ruthless.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not—”

“I know,” his smile fades. “Hank killed me once. I forgave him. It annoyed me—just a minor inconvenience—but I still forgave him. I never got the chance to tell him that. And it was the same with you. The death it—it’s terrible. I still think about how things could have gone differently. I wasn’t fighting you. I was okay with dying. I accepted it.”

“A minor inconvenience.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Connor—”

“You’re not going to hurt me,” he says quietly.

It’s easy to say. It’s not so easy to believe.

“Just because we care about each other doesn’t mean we should be together.”

“I know,” Connor says, and he reaches out, his hand hesitating in the air between them before returning to his side. “But I believe there’s good in you. And I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. And I think you’re scared.”

“Scared?” he asks, and he knows it’s true. Having Connor, having that love and that happiness, and then losing him? It’s terrifying.

“I love you,” he says. “And I want _you.”_

“Con—” he looks away, cutting himself off. Gavin cannot look at him much longer. His heart is going to break. A thousand pieces, laying on the floor. He will be devastated. Destroyed. Nothing.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” he repeats. “And I’m not going to hurt you.”

Gavin keeps his eyes locked on the floor. Letting the words sink into his head. A wave of them over and over again, as if Connor is repeating them, leaned up close and whispering them in his ear. When Gavin looks back to him, he knows it’s a mistake. His eyes, his head tilt. Like a little puppy. Always wearing that same expression. Practically begging.

“Can you—” he pauses, shifting his weight, sitting a little closer despite everything in his head telling him to move away. But his heart and his soul and his body want to be closer. To feel Connor pressed against him. To never let him go. “Can I… Can I kiss you?”

He smiles, “Please.”

Gavin leans forward, careful not to touch Connor, careful to keep as much space between them as he can. His lips brush against Connor’s. Just barely. Just enough to call it a kiss. It’s only for a second before he pulls away.

“Gavin…” Connor trails off.

“I’m sorry—”

“You aren’t going to hurt me,” he says again, and Gavin thinks he might need that on repeat for the rest of his life, because he isn’t sure if he’s ever going to truly believe it. “I’m not fragile.”

He bites his lip, looking up at him. He manages a small nod, leaning in again, his hand resting gently on the side of Connor’s neck. It feels like electricity between him. Like he’s going to be shocked and killed if they linger too close together. He moves his hand up, feeling Connor’s hair against his palm as he pulls him down.

The second kiss is a little bit deeper, a little bit _more._ Not quite what he wants, but all he can let himself have. Connor is the one to deepen it, leaning into him, hands moving to Gavin’s side, holding onto him tight. He’s pushed back against the couch, feels the way this is spiraling out of control, but how little he wants to stop it.

He hasn’t been kissed in a very, very long time. And it wasn’t in the way he wanted. A hungriness that was only used as a precursor for sex. Messy and rough and always with too much tongue.

This is the way he wants to be kissed. By someone who cares about him. By someone who wants him for more than one night. By someone _he_ wants for more than one night. He’s getting lost in this, his hands moving along Connor’s body, pulling him closer and closer and closer. He needs the contact, he feels like he might die without it.

Connor pulls away slowly, separating their lips and resting his forehead against Gavin’s. He isn’t breathing like Gavin is, trying to catch his breath, trying to still his heart.

“Do you want this?” Connor asks, and his hand moves slightly, just enough for Gavin to suck in a sharp breath. And he can imagine how it would unfold. How soft and careful Connor would be with him, and how he would return that. Ghostly touches and tender kisses. Nothing too rough, nothing that would make him slip back down the rabbit hole of fear.

It would be good, probably. He can even imagine how nice it would be. How much he wants to cry right now about how he’d find pleasure in the fact someone wouldn’t be using and tossing him aside like a sex toy.

_Fuck_. He really wants it. He wants Connor’s hand to move a little farther down and he wants to get rid of the clothes separating the two of them. He wants it. He wants to let out Connor’s name like a little breathy song and he wants to hear what Connor sounds like, too.

“Yeah,” he says, and Connor’s hand moves again, and he smiles and shakes his head. “But we shouldn’t.”

He doesn’t want to start off their relationship this way. He doesn’t want the first night they’re together to be the first night they’re _together._ He wants it to be more than that.

“Okay.”

“Are you going to leave?”

“No,” he replies, pulling Gavin towards his chest, holding him tight. “No, I’m staying.”

A kiss is pressed against the top of his head, on his forehead, another on his nose that makes him close his eyes so he doesn’t have to see. He keeps them shut when Connor wraps him up in his arms a little tighter. And he thinks about this—this moment, this warmth, this closeness he was never given. _This_ is what he’s been missing out on. _This_ is what he’s been keeping himself from having.

Love and affection.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/) | music;  
> 17 hours - emma louise


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